The Shortest Day of the Year

Yesterday was the Winter Solstice! 

Here in Alaska that's a big deal, at least for me it is, because it means that we will once again start gaining more daylight instead of losing it!  And that's something to get excited about because I absolutely HATE driving in the dark.

According to a national weather service website, our official sunrise yesterday was at 10:14 am.

Here is what our back yard looked like at around 10:15.

Here is where the sun was at around 2:00.

You can see that it doesn't get very high in the sky this time of year.

It basically just skirts across the bottom,

But if you go further up north, like in Fairbanks, the sun just rolls on the ground across the horizon.

And the official sundown was supposedly at 3:41 pm.  

Here it is starting to get dark already.

According to the website, we had exactly 5 hours, 27 minutes, and 45 seconds of daylight.

Being our shortest day of the year, we lost less than one second.

(The day before that, we lost 12 seconds.)

The good news is, today we GAIN a whopping 11 seconds!  Woo-HOO!

But those are the Anchorage figures.  Just driving up north for a few hours, and those figures change.

I'm sure you all heard stories of those places way up there that don't see the sun at all.

So how did I spend my short day yesterday?

Dipping in chocolate, of course!

Oh, how I love these marshmallows!

Yummy PB balls!

Yesterday I wanted to get all the chocolate-dipping goodies out of the way.  Today I'm going to tackle the baking part (cookies).  And I am given 11 more seconds to get it all done.

Yay!

We pretty much keep the lights on our Christmas tree glowing at all times.

I've been kinda disappointed in Beanies Weenies.  I was hoping to get a lot of laughs out of her while yelling at her to stay out of the tree, but she pretty much ignores the tree.  At first she kinda chewed on some of the branches, but she basically just pretends it's not even there.

Bossy, ignores the tree too, but when she finds a lap to sit on, that's where she'll be.

Yup, I found her sitting on Santa's lap.  She's probably asking him for a lifetime supply of bacon bits.

Can you tell by looking at the window that this picture was not taken 

between 10:14 am and 3:41 pm?

Well, I'm off to the kitchen now!

Merry Christmas!

Enjoy the sun!